[pct-l] Last Straw..

[ca_radiance at hotmail.com (Ryan Christensen)]

Ed Wrote:
>I have to say "The Last Straw" seems like a bit of a overreaction to
>a situation that is merely a retreat to the original rules.

I disagree that "The Last Straw" is an overreaction. Lets look at the facts: 
The USNFS has 382,000 miles of roads on its land, that?s more than the 
entire Interstate Highway system, enough to circle the globe 17 times, or 
long enough to drive to the moon and half-way back. Only 4.7 percent of this 
country is protected wilderness.

I would argue that the overreaction lays at the foot the current 
administration. The Roadless Rule revieved 4.3 million comments, and over 95 
percent of the comments were in favor of the rule-- that is more public 
input than any other piece of federal legislation in history.


>"National Forest Land" is not "National Park Land".

True enough-- a hike along any of the clearcuts along the PCT in NF land 
makes that quite clear. But it does not make it right-- it is Public land-- 
ultimately the land managers should be managing land in behalf of the 
public. Clearly the public has spoken for protecting the last pieces of 
wilderness.

>It isn't really the end of the world, it may just seem like it if
>your M.O. is to overreact to everything.

Here is an example from Google Maps:

http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=47.030067,-121.639767&spn=0.086689,0.168743&t=k&hl=en

Just the lower edge of the map is Mt. Rainer National Park. You can see 
where the boundary between NPS land and USFS land is by all the clearcuts... 
unfortunately its way too easy to find such maps on google maps in Oregon, 
Washington and N. California. Its the reality of the existing damage to our 
public land that has people saying "the last straw" when they find out Bush 
wants even more...

You will find the "overreaction" seems more like a natural response the more 
you look into the facts of the situation.

I am just glad that there were some farsighted people in the past who 
foresaw political times like this, and created national parks and wilderness 
areas in the first place; thus, protecting them from the fancy of changing 
political winds. Because, once you build roads into the wilderness, or 
clear- cut forests, it?s gone-- at least for a very long time, much longer 
than the politicians who authorized the destruction will be alive.

Ryan